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KPN complaint leads to anti-trust investigations in Germany and Belgium

  • April 24th, 2008
  • 2:34 pm

Dutch telco KPN has said that Germany’s antitrust authorities have launched an investigation into cellcos T-Mobile and Vodafone for allegedly abusing their dominant market positions. The Federal Cartel Office began its proceedings following a complaint from KPN, which owns rival operator E-Plus, according to a statement from the Dutch company. It added that Belgium’s competition authorities have also found that the country’s dominant cellco Proximus has also abused its dominant market position. KPN operates a mobile network in Belgium under the BASE banner. ‘The actions now taken by the competition authorities both in Germany and Belgium confirm our belief that the dominant providers are engaging in anti-competitive behaviour on both the Belgium and German markets,’ crowed KPN Mobile International’s CEO Stan Miller.

   

 

 

KPN plans more job cuts in ‘back to growth’ strategy (Netherlands)

  • February 5th, 2008
  • 1:45 pm

Dutch operator KPN has outlined plans to cut thousands of more jobs as part of its new ‘Back to growth’ strategy for the period 2008-2010. The company will cut another 2,000 FTE positions on top of the 8,000 already announced in 2005, while another 1,300 external FTEs will also go over the coming three-year period. The move is expected to result in EUR 240 million in annual cost savings, which the company will reinvest in growing new services such as broadband, TV and business IP services. KPN said it will pursue a “radical simplification” of its business, from front-end retail to back-end network operations, in order to reduce costs. This is expected to lead in the Netherlands business to a return to EBITDA growth after 2008 and revenue growth by 2010.

The company targets increasing EBITDA to over EUR 5.5 billion and sales to over EUR 15 billion in 2010, versus a reported EUR 4.9 billion and EUR 12.6 billion for 2007. That includes contributions from recent takeovers iBasis and Getronics, as well as expected high single-digit revenue and EBITDA growth at the mobile activities outside the Netherlands. For shareholders, KPN also announced plans for a EUR 1 billion share buyback this year and its intention to increase dividends over the medium term to 40-50 percent of free cahs flow, from 35-40 percent currently. Capital expenditure meanwhile will rise to around EUR 2 billion by 2010, from EUR 1.7 billion last year, while free cash flow is expected to exceed EUR 2.4 billion per year.

The new strategy was presented alongside fourth-quarter results showing sales up 20.4 percent from a year earlier to EUR 3.659 billion, thanks to the takeovers. EBITDA increased 5.6 percent to EUR 1.216 billion, while net profit jumped to EUR 1.581 billion from EUR 426 million, thanks to a EUR 1.2 billion tax gain at E-Plus in Germany. The full-year revenue decline of 0.8 percent was roughly in line with the company’s guidance for flat sales, while EBITDA dropped 0.6 percent versus an outlook for a flat result.

   

E-Plus reports 15 million customers (Germany)

  • January 31st, 2008
  • 2:38 pm

KPN’s German mobile subsidiary E-Plus has signed up its 15 millionth customer, winning 900,000 new customers since the end of September 2007, when E-Plus reported 14.1 million customers. The 15 millionth customer chose a Base 2 contract, which is part of E-Plus’s portfolio of mobile flat-rates sold under the Base brand. E-Plus will publish its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2007 on 5 February.

   

E-Plus acquires German retail chain SMS Michel Communication (Germany)

  • January 24th, 2008
  • 8:58 am

Netherlands-based telecommunications operator KPN is acquiring German retail chain SMS Michel Communication with effect from 1 January 2008, for its German mobile subsidiary E-Plus. No financial details were disclosed. With the acquisition of the approximately 200 SMS shops, E-Plus increases its retail footprint in prime city locations, thereby strengthening its position on the German mobile telecoms market in the long term. In the medium term, E-Plus will use around half of the shops as E-Plus shops. The remaining branches will continue to operate independently under the name “SMS – Smart Mobile Services”, offering a broad selection of devices and services to do with mobile telecoms. SMS Michel’s existing partnerships with network operators and end device manufacturers will also remain unaltered by the takeover and are to be intensified further. This acquisition is part of E-Plus’s strategic goal for 2008 to expand the number of sales channels in Germany and follows a marketing agreement, signed on 15 January of this year, with German consumer electronics retailer Electronic Partner.

   

KPN reaches half million TV subscribers (Netherlands)

  • January 16th, 2008
  • 2:20 pm

Dutch operator KPN has reached the milestone of half a million TV subscribers. Its two TV services, the DTT provider Digitenne and IPTV service Interactieve TV, last reported a combined total of 414,000 customers at the end of the third quarter.There were 3.3 million digital TV subscribers on the Dutch market at the end of September 2007, up 8.8 percent from three months earlier. Fourth-quarter growth is estimated at around 9 percent, leading to 3.6 million digital TV connections at year-end.

   

TDC outsources international voice services to iBasis

  • January 16th, 2008
  • 7:29 am

International voice traffic carrier iBasis revealed yesterday that it has won a five-year contract to become TDC’s exclusive provider of international voice services. iBasis will pay the Danish telco USD10 million in cash and expects to generate around USD80 million in revenue per year from the deal. The outsourcing arrangement follows iBasis’s recent acquisition of KPN Global Carrier Services which resulted in the outsourcing of KPN’s international voice business to iBasis.

   

 

Euphony, KPN to target foreigners in Spain with mobile (Spain)

  • January 10th, 2008
  • 2:07 pm

Euphony and KPN have signed a strategic deal to launch mobile services in Spain under the brand Talkout. Euphony’s chief executive in Spain, Oscar Garcia Arano, said the prepay mobile service would be marketed in the next six months, targeting foreign residents in Spain. Euphony, which offers a variety of telephony services like low-cost calls abroad, will follow the business model of KPN, the Dutch operator which specialises in niche markets. The two said their cooperation could be extended to other European countries where both are present. In December KPN already signed a deal to work with Bankinter on mobile services in Spain. They will use Orange’s mobile network in Spain and launch services in the first quarter.

   

KPN, Bankinter to operate MVNO with Orange Spain (Spain)

  • December 20th, 2007
  • 8:38 am

Dutch operator KPN has formed a partnership with Spanish banking group Bankinter, which will use Orange Spain’s network to offer mobile phone services to its banking customers. KPN had been planning to offer a service in Spain and was looking for a virtual mobile partner, with which it would buy excess capacity from another operator. The Dutch company said it was speaking to various mobile network operators. KPN spokesman Bram Oudshoorn confirmed the deal. He said that the start of the Bankinter mobile services is planned for Q1 2008. KPN is in talks with other parties as well.

   

E-Plus plans to change business model - CEO (Germany)

  • December 18th, 2007
  • 2:35 pm

KPN’s German mobile subsidiary E-Plus wants to completely change its business model by signing agreements with multiple partners like software providers and service providers, according to E-Plus CEO Thorsten Dirks in an interview with the Financial Times Deutschland. Dirks said that the current business model that sees E-Plus developing new mobile brand itself will become obsolete. To be a frontrunner, E-Plus wants to sign cooperation agreements with large internet brands like Yahoo! and Microsoft, offer them access to their network and take part of the revenues generate by those brands as its new revenue source. The reason for E-Plus to change its strategy is that the operator has not enough financial means to continuously develop new services and implement them, while it can easily open up its infrastructure for others to launch their services. Dirks said that according to internal calculations, mobile operators will be able to continue operating as they do now for a maximum of three years, after which the decreasing mobile tariffs will take their toll. Details about new services and new partners will be provided during the coming months.

   

Dutch mobile market set for 5% growth in 2007 - study (Netherlands)

  • December 7th, 2007
  • 7:37 am

The Dutch mobile market is on track for 5 percent growth in services revenues in 2007, but could see a slowdown in 2008. In the third quarter of 2007, mobile services revenues grew 1.1 percent from Q2 and were up 4.3 percent from a year earlier, to a total EUR 1.620 billion. The market added 471,000 new customers in the quarter, for a total 18.914 million at the end of September.

Market leader KPN had the best performance in terms of subscriber additions in the quarter with 293,000 new connections, while number two Vodafone added just 2,000 new customers. T-Mobile also underperformed, adding just 1,000 new customers, while its merger partner Orange gained 38,000 customers, of which almost half were postpaid. MVNOs such as Tele2, UPC and Lycamobile also performed well in postpaid, boosting their combined postpay market share to 4.7 percent from 3.1 percent a year ago.

Revenue growth in the third quarter came from the postpaid market, which posted a 7.0 percent rise in services revenues compared to a year ago, to EUR 1.37 billion. Prepaid revenues were down 8.6 percent from a year earlier, with all four network operators showing lower prepay revenues. Non-voice services such as SMS and data also helped revenue growth in Q3, increasing 21.6 percent from the year-earlier period to EUR 337 million. Voice revenues meanwhile fell versus Q2 and showed only a small rise year-on-year, to EUR 1.28 billion.